JOHN MOOREHERITAGE SERVICES ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS ON LAND OFF DRAYTON ROAD, ABINGDON, OXFORDSHIRE NGR SU 4855 9572 (centred) On behalf of Taylor Wimpey Oxfordshire JANUARY 2016 John Moore HERITAGE SERVICES Drayton Road Abingdon ABDR 14 Archaeological Excavation Report REPORT FOR Taylor Wimpey Oxfordshire Windrush Court Abingdon Business Park Abingdon Oxfordshire OX14 1SY PREPARED BY Steve Leech, Sharon Clough, Martin Tingle, Claire Ingrem, Frances Raymond, Jane Timby, Kath Hunter, Bob Eels and Simona Denis ILLUSTRATION BY Autumn Robson, Roy Entwistle, and Andrej Čelovský EDITED BY John Moore APPROVED BY John Moore FIELDWORK 26th August to 25th November 2014 Steve Leech, Simona Denis, Mark Woodley, Sam Pamment, Tom Rose-Jones, Emily Buma, Mel Harvell, Pierre Manisse, Anne Huvig, Gareth Reese and Alessandro Guaggenti REPORT ISSUED 19th January 2016 ENQUIRES TO John Moore Heritage Services Hill View Woodperry Road Beckley Oxfordshire OX3 9UZ Tel/Fax 01865 358300 Email: [email protected] Site Code ABDR 14 JMHS Project No: 3036 Archive Location The archive is currently held at John Moore Heritage Services and will be deposited with Oxfordhsire County Museums Service with accession code 2012.115 John Moore HERITAGE SERVICES Drayton Road Abingdon ABDR 14 Archaeological Excavation Report CONTENTS Page Summary i 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Site Location 1 1.2 Planning Background 1 1.3 Archaeological Background 1 2 AIMS OF THE INVESTIGATION 3 3 STRATEGY 3 3.1 Research Design 3 3.2 Methodology 3 4 RESULTS 6 4.1 Field Results 6 4.2 Genral deposits 7 4.3 Palaeolithic period 7 4.4 Neolithic / Early Bronze Age (2500 to 1600 BC) 9 4.5 Late Bronze Age / Early Iron Age (9th-6th centuries BC) 9 4.6 Early Iron Age (8th-6thcenturies BC) Phase 1 13 4.7 Early Iron Age (8th-6thcenturies BC) Phase 2 36 4.8 Early Iron Age (8th-6thcenturies BC) Phase 3 41 4.9 Early Iron Age (8th-6thcenturies BC) Phase 4 42 4.10 Roman Period (1st to 4th centuries AD) 45 4.11 Medieval and Post-Medieval 51 4.12 Undated features 51 4.13 Reliability of Results 51 5 FINDS AND ENVIRONMENTAL REMAINS 52 5.1 Prehistoric Pottery by Frances Raymon 52 5.2 Roman Pottery by Jane Timby 64 5.3 Lithics by Martin Tingle 65 5.4 Human Remains by Sharon Clough 67 5.5 Animal Remains by Claire Ingrem 71 5.6 Palaeo-environmental Remains by Kath Hunter 77 5.7 Palaeolithic Description and Lithics by Bob Eels 78 5.8 Miscellaneous finds by Simona Denis 84 6 DISCUSSION 87 7 ARCHIVE 95 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY 96 Appendix 1 Animal bone tables 106 John Moore HERITAGE SERVICES Drayton Road Abingdon ABDR 14 Archaeological Excavation Report FIGURES Figure 1 Site location 2 Figure 2 Stages of archaeological investigations 4 Figure 3 Overall site plan with cropmarks 5 Figure 4 Plan of Palaeolithic, Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age phases 8 Figure 5 Sections 1-3 11 Figure 6 Plan of Early Iron Age Phases 1-4 12 Figure 7 Sections 4-10 15 Figure 8 Sections 11-28 18 Figure 9 Sections 29-45 20 Figure 10 Sections 46-67 27 Figure 11 Sections 68-85 34 Figure 12 Early Iron Age Phase 1 features Area 3 35 Figure 13 Sections 86-96 39 Figure 14 Plan of SK 1342 40 Figure 15 Sections 97-116 44 Figure 16 Plan of Roman, Medieval and Post-Medieval features46 Figure 17 Sections 117-127 49 Figure 18 Sections 128-130 50 Figure 19 Early All Cannings Cross pottery 63 Figure 20 Plan of Trenches one and two with indicative Ipswichian/Eemian find locations shown as well as the interpreted direction of channel flow 80 Figure 21 Levels on the Ipswichian/Eemian palaeo-channel surface from the highest part of the warm-stage gravel ) to the surface of the cold-stage gravel 81 PLATES Plate 1 Trample layer in base of Paleochannel 2049 10 Plate 2 General overview of roundhouse 1102 31 Plate 3 General overview of Areas 1 and 2 with ditch 1403 37 Plate 4 Skeleton 1352 40 Plate 5 Working shot of SK 1352 under excavation 40 Plate 6 Gully 1491, looking north 42 Plate 7 Cattle skull with horn cores removed 70 Plate 8 Red deer humerus with chop marks 70 Plate 9 Red deer antler with chop marks 70 Plate 10 Pathology on horse metatarsal 70 John Moore HERITAGE SERVICES Drayton Road Abingdon ABDR 14 Archaeological Excavation Report Summary In late summer 2014, John Moore Heritage Services undertook an archaeological excavation on land to the east of Drayton Road Abingdon NGR (SU 4855 9572 centred). Four areas were targeted on archaeological features highlighted from the two stage evaluation conducted previously. Palaeolithic mammal bones were recovered from the natural gravels that the later archaeology was cut into. Human occupation of the site was represented by a single Neolithic pit and flints recovered from the topsoil / subsoil, a palaeochannel was dated to the Late Bronze Age, four phases of activities dating to the Early Iron Age were identified together with a limited Roman Presence. Medieval ridge and furrows were present along the site and there were limited activities in the post-medieval. The Early Iron Age farmstead consisted of one roundhouse associated with a four-post structure within the excavation areas and a developing enclosure system containing various fence lines for livestock control. The Roman activity within the excavations was limited with the major part in the extreme north-west corner suggesting that the majority of the Roman remains are off site to the north and north-west. i John Moore HERITAGE SERVICES Drayton Road Abingdon ABDR 14 Archaeological Excavation Report 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Site Location (Figure 1) The site was located on land to the east of Drayton Road, Abingdon NGR (SU 4855 9572 centred). The underlying geology was Kimmeridge Clay that underlies both the First and Second Limestone Gravel Terraces with Head and younger Coombe Deposits to the east (BGS sheet 253). 1.2 Planning Background Planning permission was granted by the Vale of White Horse District Council (VOWHDC) for a residential development east of Drayton Road south of Abingdon (P12/V2266/FUL). An initial geophysical survey revealed a series of anomalies that was tested by two phases of archaeological field evaluation. The evaluations revealed evidence of Iron Age activity. There was no evidence to suggest any of the archaeological features were demonstrably of equivalent significance to a scheduled monument and therefore a programme of archaeological recording was recommended. The planning application was refused but subsequently allowed after an appeal. The inspector attached a condition requiring a staged programme of archaeological investigation in advance of development. A Written Scheme of Investigation was prepared by John Moore Heritage Services and agreed with the Oxfordshire Historic and Natural Environmental Team on behalf of VOWHDC. 1.3 Archaeological Background The development site was situated just to the east of the Sutton Wick SAM (monument number 233986), an area of complex cropmarks (Fig. 3). Other, possibly associated, cropmarks are also evident to the northeast and east of the site; many of which represent barrow cemeteries and enclosures. A geophysical survey has been conducted across the site (Stratascan 2012). This recorded the potential for limited archaeological features in the east of the development area (Fig. 2). A first stage (Fig. 2) of archaeological evaluation confirmed suspected archaeological anomalies in four of the trenches (JMHS 2012). Other anomalies across the site were tested in the field and considered to be natural. Near the centre of the field, trenches 18 & 22 contained features which comprised most commonly ditches, pits and postholes, which would fit the character of a prehistoric farmstead. The only dating evidence recovered from the evaluation was mid to late Iron Age pottery leading to the suggestion that a small farmstead with simple outlying fields, marked by ditched boundaries, once occupied this site during the mid to late 1st Millennium BC. The site was probably abandoned during the 1st century BC. A second phase (Fig. 2) of archaeological evaluation trenching on land off Drayton Road, Abingdon found a number of features across the site with some dated by pottery recovered from the fills to the Iron Age period (JMHS 2014). The majority of Iron Age pottery was 1 John Moore HERITAGE SERVICES Drayton Road Abingdon ABDR 14 Archaeological Excavation N N Site Oxfordshire Ordnance Survey © Crown Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. Licence number LAN1000151 Ordnance Survey © Crown Copyright 2015. 0 50 km 0 5000 m N VIRGINIA WAY AREA 1 58.9m 958 DRAYTON ROAD ard Bdy AREA 2 W AREA 3 957 AREA 4 Def 485 486 487 Ordnance Survey (c) Crown Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. Licence number 100020449 0 100 m Key Site boundary Excavated area Archaeological features Medieval furrow Figure 1: Site location 2 John Moore HERITAGE SERVICES Drayton Road Abingdon ABDR 14 Archaeological Excavation Report recovered from two conjoined ditches in the NW corner of the site. Two sherds of Iron Age pottery were also recovered from a continuous ditch which had been cut NE-SW along the west side of the site. A further sherd of Iron Age pottery were recovered from a stake hole adjacent to this feature and one more piece of Iron Age pottery was found in a linear ditch found towards the south of the site. Linear ditches were discovered in eight of the fourteen trenches and in total 15 sections of ditch were identified. At least eight of these sections appeared to be on alignment with ditches in other trenches representing four possible continuous ditches. Towards the east of the site a ditch terminus appeared to align with a ditch terminus found during the first evaluation phase to form a 14m banana shaped ditch.